What We Were Then and What We Are Now
by skystar234
Summary: The baby started crying when Monica held him, but is that really the way to determine who someone is? My little take on what might have happened after the events of "The One with the Baby on the Bus." Oneshot.


**Author's Note/Disclaimer:** I do not own Friends. This is just a little idea that bounced into my head when I watched Season 2 and saw _The One with the Baby on the Bus_. Now we've all probably heard the theory about Ben where he got taken away from Ross, which is why we don't see him really at all after Emma was born (dunno if I believe it, but it does seem plausible), but this was another idea that I had that might have happened at some point in the lives of our favorite Friends. I did my best to keep the dates and ages in range of the show (I'm as old as Ben would be today, it feels really weird), so I hope you like it!

 _ **What We Were and Who We Are**_

There were many things Ben Geller knew about himself for certain. While most kids had two parents, he had three- Momma Carol, Momma Susan, and Dad. He also had a little sister named Emma, even though they didn't have the same Moms. He also had Aunt Monica, who always had gum, and Uncle Chandler, who pretended to dress up like Santa whenever he had Christmas at his father's house. He had Uncle Joey, Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Rachel, even though none of them were actually related to him. He was part Jewish, and he liked pranks.

When he was younger, he thought everything he knew about himself was true. The unfortunate truth of growing up was learning about what wasn't.

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When Ben was 15, he was signed up for AP Biology (much to his father's delight) and they were meant to do a project on his genetics. They did a blood test in class, and then were meant to go back through their family history, learning about health and heredity.

The class compared the results from their finger pricks, and Ben discovered he was type AB+. "That's a good type," His teacher told him. "You're a universal recipient, so you can receive blood from anyone." Ben couldn't wait to get home to tell his mothers.

When he did, however, his mothers didn't seem excited or interested in what he was learning, which was weird. Momma Carol was a teacher, she usually loved hearing what he learned at school. Instead, he just looked confused, and slightly worried.

When he asked what was wrong, Momma Carol just shook it off. "It's nothing, really, I just thought I remembered the doctor telling me your blood type was B-." She said. It was the same as Ross', she remembered they'd laughed about it.

Ben shrugged and went back to his homework, not really thinking on it, but the thought stuck in Carols' mind. She dug out Ben's certificate to check, and there it was, in print- his blood type was B-. Maybe his test had been wrong- it was a high school experiment after all, she told herself. It was nothing to worry about.

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When Ben was 16, he accidentally had a bite of kiwi. He usually was careful to avoid it- he'd had an allergic reaction to it once when he was a baby and his throat had almost closed up. After that his parents were very careful to keep him away from kiwi- his dad was allergic to them too. But at a school function, he accidentally took a bite of a strawberry-kiwi cookie, and nothing happened. He didn't even realize it until he'd gotten home, hours later, told his mothers, and just been given a bewildered stare.

They'd rushed him to the hospital, just in case, but the doctors said nothing was wrong.

"That can't be right," Momma Susan said. "He had kiwi once as a baby and almost died!"

The doctor frowned. "Well I suppose it's always possible that he grew out of it, but I'll run some tests to be sure."

For the next few hours, Jack sat in a hospital room for blood draws. His father came in about an hour later, alerted by Momma Carol, and he offered a blood sample as a comparison, since he was definitely allergic to kiwi.

As Ben sat with his parents in the waiting room, he couldn't help but feel a creeping sense of dread. When the doctor finally came out, all four members of the family stiffened in their chairs.

The doctor scratched his head, looking deeply uncomfortable. "I don't know if I've ever had this sort of case before…"

"Is Ben okay?" Ross asked, while both mothers clasped hands. He put a hand on Ben's shoulder. "Is my son alright?"

"He seems to be in perfect health." The doctor admitted, and all of the adults let out a breath. "However…based on the blood-work we've run, he's not your son either."

Ben felt his head spin. It was like someone had pressed cotton over his ears and forced water down his lungs.

"What?" He choked out.

Carol shook her head furiously. "No, that's not possible, Ross and I were married for eight years before I married Susan, there wasn't anyone else!"

"That's the thing." The doctor said softly. "His blood tests don't match yours either. I went back and pulled his birth records. Other than in looks, nothing matches up."

"So what are you saying?" Susan asked quietly.

The doctor sighed heavily. "I'm saying that…that the baby you left the hospital with is not this boy."

Everyone turned to look at Ben again, faces gone pale, and Ben felt like he couldn't breath.

He'd thought he'd known who he was. But now…

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"I don't understand." Carol whispered, looking back at Ben in anguish. She and Ross had gotten up to talk, leaving Susan to rub Ben's back soothingly. He looked like he was about to pass out, which was how Ross felt right about then. "It has to be a screw-up with the tests, right? I mean, how can he not be Ben?"

Ross was pacing back and forth. "I don't know, I don't know…I mean, we left the hospital with Ben, the one who was allergic to kiwi and was B- blood type! I don't know how this can't be him!"

Carol threw up her hands. "Well…I don't know, if this _isn't_ our son, when did this happen?"

"I don't know!" Ross said. "We've never left him alone with anyone we didn't trust, he's always been…been…" He trailed off as a memory, almost 17 years ago, rose to his mind. When Ben had just been a year old, after his kiwi attack, Ross had left him with Joey and Chandler…

"The bus." Ross whispered.

Carol narrowed her eyes. "What?"

Ross put one hand on his head. "Okay, um, do you remember right before Ben's 1st birthday, I accidentally ate kiwi and had to go to the hospital? I left Ben with Joey and Chandler, and they took him on the bus…"

Carol's eyes widened and she lifted her hands to her mouth. She remembered how nervous Ross had been to explain the situation to her afterwards, and he'd forced Joey and Chandler to come and apologize in person. They'd explained there had been two babies in Child Services that day…

"You don't think…" Carol trailed off, as if not saying the words would keep them from being true. "You don't think…?!"

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Ben could hear his father in the other room, yelling on the phone at Uncle Joey and Uncle Chandler, as his mother explained what might have happened. When he'd been a baby, Uncle Joey and Uncle Chandler had left him on a bus while babysitting, and when they went to get him, there had been two babies in the Child Services department. They must have left with the other child, not Ben Geller.

Ben Geller…could he call himself that now? Could he still consider these people his parents? He couldn't remember ever being with anyone else…was May 11 still his birthday?

Who was he? 

"We still love you," Momma Susan kept saying, but the doctors kept talking about getting the police involved, to find his real family.

To find their real son.

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The next six months were tense and quiet, no one really knowing what to say to each other. Ben's birthday (at least, what they thought was his birthday) came and went. He received his first college acceptance to NYU. Two different girls tried to hint him into asking them to Prom.

But nothing was the same.

The police had released his photo and a statement, asking for the parents of a child who'd been left in Child Services on November 2, 1995, to come forward. Part of Ben didn't want anyone to do it, he just wanted things to go back to the way they were.

But another part of him wanted to know where he came from.

After 8 months, the phone rang. The police department said a couple had come in with their son, and a blood test had confirmed that he was the real son of Ross Geller and Carol Willick.

As they drove to the station, Ben brought up the question no one had voiced. "What happens now?"

Momma Carol and Ross looked at each other. "We'll have to talk to this other family." Ross said finally. "But you're our son. Nothing has to change." He said this confidently, as if everything hadn't already changed.

When they walked into the station, three people stood up- a man, a woman, and a blonde teenage boy.

Ben stared at the parents- his parents- and he looked for something, anything, in their faces that seemed familiar. He supposed he could see similarities in the shape of the man's chin, the slight uptick of the woman's lips, but he didn't feel anything.

They were his parents, but they weren't his family.

"Hi." Ross said at last. "I'm Ross Geller. This is my ex-wife, Carol Willick, and her…partner, Susan Bunch. And this is Ben."

The other woman's soft eyes fell on him. "I'm Maria Grant. This is my husband Ian, and our son, Nathaniel."

 _ **Nathaniel.**_

The boys stared at each other. Ben supposed they looked a bit alike- same hair color, though Nathaniel wore his in a buzz cut. He also looked like he worked out more than Ben did, and was slightly taller.

"We, um…" The other boy looked at his parents. "We wanted to come clear this up. But we don't want anything to change." He looked straight at the Geller-Willick-Bunch quartet. "We're a family." He said, almost pleadingly.

Ben felt a smile spread over his face and Momma Carol wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Neither do we." He said confidently.

The families relaxed, smiling, and Ross suggested getting a bite to eat. They settled down at a little Italian place, swapping stories about the mix-up (the Grants had turned away from Nathaniel in a shopping cart for two seconds and it had rolled away- a helpful bystander had taken him to Child Services for safe keeping, and they'd had to fill out a lot of paperwork to get him back, by which time Joey and Chandler had already left) and about their lives. Nathaniel played football and was planning on enlisting in the Air Force after graduation.

Ben looked from he Grants to his family and smiled. He no longer knew his medical history or who he had been, but he still knew who he was now.

He was Ben Geller. He had a dad and two moms and a sister and aunts and uncles.

And he was happy.


End file.
